Alternative Distribution Options

As an open platform, Android offers choice. You can distribute your Android
apps to users in any way you want, using any distribution approach or
combination of approaches that meets your needs. From publishing in an app
marketplace to serving your apps from a web site or emailing them directly
users, you’re never locked into any particular distribution platform.

The process for building and packaging your apps for distribution is the
same, regardless of how you distribute them. This saves you time and lets you
automate parts of the process as needed. You can read Preparing for Release for
more information.

The sections below highlight some of the alternatives for distributing your
apps.

Distributing Through an App Marketplace

Usually, to reach the broadest possible audience, you’d distribute your apps
through a marketplace, such as Google Play.

Google Play is the premier marketplace for Android apps and is particularly
useful if you want to distribute your apps to a large global audience.
However, you can distribute your apps through any app marketplace you want or
use multiple marketplaces.

Unlike other forms of distribution, Google Play allows you to use the In-app
Billing service and Licensing service. The In-app Billing service makes
it easy to sell in-app products like game jewels or app feature upgrades. The
Licensing service
helps prevent unauthorized installation and use of your apps.

Distributing Your Apps by Email

Figure 1. Users can simply click Install when you send them
an application via email.

An easy and quick way to release your apps is to send them to users by email.
To do this, you prepare the app for release, attach it to an email, and send
it to a user. When the user open your email on their Android-powered device,
the Android system recognizes the APK and displays an Install
Now button in the email message (see Figure 1). Users can install
your app by touching the button.

Distributing apps through email is convenient if you’re sending them to a few
trusted users, as it provides few protections from piracy and unauthorized
distribution; that is, anyone you send your apps to can simply forward them
to others.

Distributing Through a Website

If you don’t want to release your apps on a marketplace such as Google Play,
you can make them available for download on your own website or server,
including on a private or enterprise server. To do this, you first prepare
your apps for release in the normal way. Then all you need to do is host the
release-ready APK file on your website and provide a download link to users.

When users browse to the download link from their Android-powered devices,
the file is downloaded and Android system automatically starts installing it
on the device. However, the installation process will start automatically
only if users have configured their Settings to allow the installation of
apps from unknown
sources.

User Opt-In for Apps from Unknown Sources

Figure 2. Users must enable the Unknown sources setting
before they can install apps not downloaded from Google Play.

Android protects users from inadvertent download and install of apps from
locations other than Google Play (which is trusted). It blocks such installs
until the user opts-in Unknown sources in Settings
> Security, shown in Figure 2. Users need to make this
configuration change before they download your apps to their
devices.